A Golden Path: Design 3.6 (ch. 29)

“Damn bloody slavin’ pirate merchant cunts. Can't do a damn thing right in Essos. Can't make a decent cup of wine, can't worship the right gods, and they can't even fight a war properly,” Robert groused, looking up at the hill that they were meant to take on the Bloodstone island of the Stepstones. One of the largest islands that actually had something resembling nature beyond the dull barren rocks and sand the other islands offered. 

The hill was a right pain in his arse. Some four hundred pissants decided to dwell within the hill that was a honeycomb of passages, caverns, and mining tunnels that seemed to be an ever changing labyrinth that none could truly understand. Not even the sorry bastards that they captured and tortured into confessing the layout and location of the resistance because every time they arrived at such an entrance, the bastards that dwelled within collapsed the tunnel. 

Something that they did a lot. 

They would sneak out in the dead of night for a raid -- sometimes killing their sentries, other times looting and burning their supplies, before they would slink back to their holes in the ground. Meanwhile, his men would brave the tunnels to chase after the bastards or to flush them out, but every battle eas bloody, messy, and that was if they didn't collapse a damn tunnel on top of their heads. And it was that last bit that really bloody stung because after getting ton of rock dropped on his head when he led a charge into the tunnels, Robert had been expressly forbidden from entering the tunnels again. 

There was no glory to this battle. No honor. Just knives in the dark and murder. 

“How bad was last night's raid?” He asked, looking out at the hill that stood out like an ugly thumb. To think that the whole island was full of them. Made his flesh crawl with a shiver racing down his spine. 

“We lost three men,” Lord Dondarrion replied, his tone clipped. “Throats slit in the dark, but an attack on our supplies was repelled. This time.” There was a loud silence from the lords that followed him to this rock -- lords of the Stormlands, one and all. Collectively, they commanded five thousand men that were scattered across the Bloodstone, stemming the other pirates that decided to hide in the darkness like a scourge of rats. His contingent was the largest of a thousand men, with the others being smaller from a band of a few hundred to a few dozen. 

And because of the damned tunnels, Robert didn't know if he massively outnumbered the scum of the sea or if he was helplessly outnumbered. 

“Their replacements are on their way,” another lord remarked. 

“For how long? This attrition is a slow bleeding that we aren't any closer to stemming,” Lord Swann rebuked. “Three months on this island and we are no closer to taking it than we started.” 

They weren't. That's what really pricked at his pride. What they had done was lost a lot of good men for inches of progress that were swiftly erased when the pirates decided to collapse a tunnel rather than risk it falling into their hands. After a very close brush with utter disaster, they learned to spread their supplies across the island rather than keep them in one place. It did mean that they had to spread themselves thin to guard the various caches of supplies, and that encouraged the pirates to poke holes in their defenses. 

Killing a man there, killing three there. It wasn't much. Not in the grand scheme of things. But it was absolutely hell on their morale. 

Robert's eyes lowered to the camp at the base of the hill where a thousand men were milling about. There was a sluggishness in their actions that hadn’t been there when they first arrived. The knights and lords looked forward to glory and prestige, and what they had was three months of interrupted sleep, half rations, and a slow but steady grind on their numbers. They were miserable and disappointed and frustrated with an absolute lack of progress. 

“As long as is needed -- this was ordered by the king,” another lord growled. 

“Stories have already reached the Seven Kingdoms,” Lord Dondarrion remarked. “They expected tales of heroism with the Prince leading the charge. And instead we've taken a few worthless islands and got caught in a quagmire. The tide of hedge knights will stem soon. As well as the lords of the kingdoms that decide to wash their hands of the whole affair. Supplies will dwindle until we're left paying for an army from our own pockets. And then we will either die here to avoid our debts and to reclaim some honor, or these merchants will chase us off like beaten dogs.” 

What he described was a bitter truth for some, and a lack of sleep hadn't done well for anyone's tempers. A row started behind him as his lords fell into quarreling and accusations being hurled of cowardice or being thick headed. Robert ignored them as he looked back up at the hill, his lips pressing into a thin line. 

He had been so excited to finally go to war. None of that prancing about in tourneys or the starting yard. Here, he figured he would learn what he was really made of. And thus far, he wasn’t too happy with the results. 

“Sod it all,” Robert decided with a shake of his head and turning to face his lords. But, as he did so, he caught a view of the ocean in the near distance. They had set up camp near the sea for an easy supply of fish, and he saw some of his men out on dinghies catching fish for supper. 

He squinted. 

And then he smiled. 

“Quite! The lot of you!” Robert barked, making the huffing and puffing lords shut their traps. “Our enemy wants to hide in the darkness like a bunch of rats? I say we start treating them like rats. And what do you do to flush them out?” He asked with a leading grin. That quickly lost its edge because most of the lords stared back at him blankly. 

Thankfully, Lord Swann had an answer to save him from having to explain. “You drown them.” 

“Aye. You drown them,” Robert agreed with his smile widening. He turned around and pointed at the hill. “I figure that the hill is basically just a big anthill. We guide the water up to the top of the hill somehow, pop a hole in the top, and flood the place out. Those that don't drown will be forced to leave and we can slaughter them -- no quarter given. No mercy.” 

It wasn't honorable. It wasn't fair. But fuck ‘em. Shouldn't have been such a pain in the ass then. They made their bed, so Robert would drown them in it.

The lords glanced amongst each other, glad to have a plan, but it was Lord Dondarrion that spoke. “Lord Baratheon… how exactly do we carry such volume of water up a hill?” 

“Damned if I know,” Robert admitted freely. “That's for the maester's to figure out.” 

…

The maesters did figure it out. Eventually. Within a week a letter had been sent off to Old Town, and an answer was sent back with a few maesters who had links in architecture. They spent the better part of a week coming up with a design that would carry sea water up the hill and in enough volume to flood the place out. That design Robert had to reject, along with the one that followed -- both were too complicated. 

Getting the water up there wasn't enough. That was just the first part of the challenge -- they'd have to build the damned thing, and the entire affair would be pointless if it took them a year to build. He refused to besiege a damn hill of all things filled with a few hundred pirates. Not to mention the fact that the pirates would hardly be idle. They'd attack it, trying to undo their progress, and who knew what else. 

So, he gave them a deadline to create something that could be built within a month. And the third time seemed to be the charm as a week later, three exhausted maesters presented him with a final design that he approved. 

Robert, for his part, could barely make heads or tails of it. He was good at smashing in heads rather than using his own, but the bits and pieces that he did understand was that they would concentrate the waves of the sea into a center pipe, and then have a bunch of smallfolk pull a crank to force the water up the hill. Seemed simple enough, and all the better, the materials they needed were on the island so they went to work. 

A sense of purpose helped morale in the camp, in particular, people were really looking forward to drowning the pirates like rats. The entirety of his five thousand men began to mobilize across the island with two goals in mind -- hunting down the entrances to the hill to collapse them and to secure resources for the construction project. 

The pirates obviously picked up on that something had changed, but they weren't sure what until the construction began in honest. Then they started to get desperate, sensing what was coming, but Robert was well prepared for it. Their attacks increased during the dead of the night, attempting to burn their supplies as much as they were trying to destroy the ‘water screw’ as people had taken to calling it. Their attacks were repelled, as the pirates never attacked with more than a few dozen men at a time, though usually at several places at once. 

They took losses. Many of them. Before, the pirates had been slowly whistling away at them, but now they realized their game was over and they attacked in force to stall any progress. The buggers came crawling out of every hole in the ground and seemingly every shadow, but they gave as good as they got. For the most part. 

The raids continued nightly, yet they faltered in their purpose. The water screws were carved out of timber, the foundations hammered into the earth, and bit by bit, Robert saw his vision manifest. The smallfolk laid out the funnel thing, and entered strange spinning wheels that they pushed to shove the water up a canal. Before the water could falter, other small folk spun a lever that turned a screw. The water made its way up the hill, where he had some lads digging down into the rats nest, and the water started to fill the tunnels. 

It was a glorious sight that took about three weeks to manifest, but that glory was overshadowed by a lack of reaction from the pirates. The water started filling up the tunnels, but they didn't come screaming out like a bunch of bats from hell. Hours went by without a reaction, long enough that Robert started to feel like a right fool and all the effort was for nothing. And then a messenger came running, absolutely breathless. 

“Milord! Milord! They tried to break one of the exits! We repelled them!” He heaved, dripping with sweat. 

“Where?” Robert asked sharply, passing a waterskin to him and letting him take a few breaths and a sip before he answered. 

“On the other side of the island, milord,” He informed, explaining why he looked so spent -- sprinting in chainmail would do that to you. “They came out in force! Dozens of them! But, milord, when we were pushing them back into their rat den, we saw water in the caverns.” 

“... well, that explains a few things,” Robert mused, his brow furrowing as he reevaluated the plan. He wasn't sure if the tunnels throughout the island had always been connected, but they sure were now. And, in that moment, he asked himself if anything changed about it. 

And the answer was no. 

“Keep them hemmed in,” Robert instructed. “Destroy every exit they have.” 

They would be forced out or they would drown. And Robert was going to make damn sure that when they came running out, that they did so from an exit of his choosing. 

The following days followed that goal. Water was continuously pumped into the tunnels, and now that they were just destroying the exits rather than trying to explore the labyrinth, they had a much easier time keeping them hemmed inside. The exits were plugged up one by one, and they entered their death throws. The cold calculation that had been behind every raid became a frantic desperation to escape. How many were in there was anyone’s guess, but Robert’s guess was too many, and the room for all of them was only getting smaller. 

Robert chose his battlefield. There was a divet in the hill, creating something of a basin that allowed his men to have the high ground. He had them arranged in an offensive line -- pikemen at the front, archers behind them, with knights on foot to go where they were needed as the pirates would eventually gain enough momentum to push through the pikeline. It was a good battlefield, and the only option left for them. 

He was ready, and all that was left was for the pirates to decide how they wanted to die -- water filling their lungs or blood.

There was a certain tension in the air that came on the eve of a real battle that Robert savored like the sweetest of wines. It was even better than the Melee, which he had been convinced would be the greatest day of his life. Months of patience, something he never had in great amounts, tireless work, and now it was here. The day of an actual bloody battle. 

“LET ME HIT SOMETHING!” Robert roared at the entrance of the tunnel, where he could see the pale faces filled with fear peering back at his army and him from the shadows. He wore his plate, antlers protruding from his helm. He hefted his warhammer, the one made for war rather than tourneys. People likened it to an anvil on a stick, and they weren’t wrong. Yet, he easily threw it into the air with one hand, his army roaring with approval, ready for battle. A real battle. No more knives in the dark. 

That tension snapped without any real warning. The first of the pirates emerged from the tunnel, and he looked like he had just crawled out of the seven hells. He had naturally sun-kissed skin, yet the natural hue faded until he looked like he was covered in chalk. Deep bags gathered under his eyes that were sunken into his skull, a scraggy beard clinging to his jaw, and he seemed too thin and sick. 

The water must have gotten to their supplies and that many people that close together? Pissing and shitting all right next to each other? Aye, that’d do it. 

He almost felt a bit bad for the man who walked into the sun, utterly surrounded, clutching a curved sword as he squinted up at the sky, likely seeing it for the first time in weeks. He glanced back at the tunnel, seeing his fellows, and when he looked back, it was just in time to catch an arrow in the throat. He dropped like a rock, and his gasps over gurgling blood seemed impossibly loud given the number of people on the battlefield. As was the silence afterward when his body lay still. 

For a moment, Robert thought the pirates would decide to die by drowning, but he was assured when another pirate left the opening. Followed by another, and another, and another. Two at a time, then three. Then, as fast as they could run out with a low building war cry while they charged at their line without anything resembling cohesion. With a gesture, Robert let the archers pick their own targets while the smallfolk jabbed at the pirates that came near, who were trying to slip by their leveled pikes. 

Their bodies started to pile up in the basin, first a few dozen, but that number was steadily increasing with every arrow loosed, yet two seemed to replace every one felled with no signs of slowing of the stream of bodies. It was then that Robert started to suspect the truth of it -- he really had been utterly outnumbered on his damned island. With those numbers, they inevitably pushed against the pikemen. Pirates would come streaming out, looking for a point of weakness, and were drawn to the one they found. 

And that was exactly where Robert wanted to be. 

He started to move, the sounds of screaming echoing in the air -- be it war cries or the crying of the dying. The air was heavy with a scent of blood and shit that only drew stronger when the pikeline backed off at he and his knights arrival. His heart thundered in his chest like a war drum the closer he got to the front, and each beat was a clap of thunder in his ears when the pirates managed to breach the pike line. 

He was nervous, Robert realized. He hadn’t expected that. 

But there was no time for it. The pirates didn’t care that a line of knights stood in their way, only that they were in their way. The difference between certain death and freedom, even if it only meant they were free on a small island in the middle of fuck all. With a breath, Robert braced himself and swung his warhammer with all of his strength, catching a man in the side of the head. 

Bone shattered, and there was a spray of blood, the man’s heart still beating and sending up a fountain of blood even as his legs gave out from underneath him. Just like that, he killed his first man. And then his second with the back swing, catching another pirate in the ribs, and if he wasn’t dead on impact, then he died slowly on the ground, trampled underfoot by his fellows. 

Then the rest of them slammed into him. The knights at his side gave him enough breathing room to let him swing his hammer without worry, and every swing delivered death to anyone he struck. And, in a way, it was absolutely everything he had always imagined it to be. 

He had always been strong for his age, and as he grew into a man, that only became more true. But that strength came with a hidden cost -- when he was sparring, he could never hit someone as hard as he could. When he swung his hammer, he always pulled back instead of following through, else he’d kill them. There was always this… awareness in the back of his mind that he had to hold something back, and for the very first time, he could fight without reservation. 

And it felt good. It was just… not entirely what he expected. 

The force that he faced was just a trickle, and when the pirates realized that they were beating their fists against a brick wall, they looked elsewhere to escape. They probed the other places, but they didn’t find much there either, leaving them simply throwing themselves upon the pikes or arrows raining down upon them. The divet itself…

Robert glanced down at his boots, vaguely aware of something wet, and he saw that it was water. Water that was dyed red, giving the impression that it was all blood from a field of bodies in his view so thick that they were piling up in places. There had to be at least a thousand of them. If not more. 

And they died for nothing -- a rock in the Narrow Sea.

It made him feel… conflicted in a way that he wasn’t entirely sure that he liked, even as his army erupted into cheering when the very last pirate fell. The tunnels were either empty or filled with cowards. The latter, Robert would soon learn as the men began blocking up the last exit, and those few still within would claw desperately to get out. Something they would fail. 

His gaze found his warhammer that was slick with gore and blood, his lips thinning ever so slightly. 

He loved fighting, but Robert wasn’t sure he cared much for war.